Izabella
by Blaze Eos 0204
Summary: She was a broken Yazidi who'd somehow escaped the purgatory...
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

"…Izabella Yazmin Cullen."

The woman was startled. She would have sat motionless, had it not been for the comforting gentle touch of the man who sat beside her. The years had only added distinguished gray's in his unruly copper hair, fine laugh lines at the corner of his eyes. Otherwise, he was still the same man she'd clung to when she'd crawled out of her hell.

"Darling…"

She gave him a smile before standing up and heading towards the stage.

Once, the very stage had daunted her, the language had scared her, the people had seemed to crowd her, but now she was well-versed in the art of championing her cause.

Her Edward had taught her that.

She reached the dais, the lights unnaturally bright on her face.

Today the memories were sharper.

Today, she set aside the speech she'd prepared.

"Hello, everyone." Her accent was slightly evident.

The chime of bells-Edward always said with that half-smile on his face.

Once, there had only been silence.

"There was once a girl named Izabella…"

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 **I don't have a beta, so I apologize for all the mistakes. Leave me some love, people…**


	2. Chapter 2

**This chapter contains description of rape and abuse, skip if it offends you.**

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Chapter One

Hands roughly shoved at the skirt she wore, calloused hands that smelt of gunpowder. She knew by now that resistance was futile, rebellion a harsh mistake. She had learned that valuable lesson very painfully at the hands of a man who enjoyed bleeding, sobbing virgins.

' _Are you done, Nassar?'_ Someone called from outside the door. The man's grunts were answer enough. She didn't even flinch when the man shoved his cock roughly into her vagina, his stale breath falling on her young face.

As he pounded mercilessly in Izabella Yazmin's body, she was miles away in her mind from this hell that she currently inhabited…

 _The birds chirped in their nests and wind sang a melancholy tune. Izabella sat on the rock that looked down on a small stream, sun rays glinting like forgotten pieces of gold on the rocks beneath the running water. She usually came to sit here after her afternoon prayers._

 _But unlike every other day, today she was not at peace. Today she'd hurried to this quiet abode to get away from the talks of her marriage to Fayad._

 _Fayad…was not someone with whom she envisioned her future. He was amazing in the opinion of her father and brothers, but she didn't like his coarse language and his squinty little eyes. He looked at her in a way that made her feel violated._

 _But she knew that if father was set on marrying her off with Fayad, then she would be married to Fayad, no questions asked, no reasons given._

 _Nobody went against father, nobody._

 _The sudden image of a body bleeding on streets came to her mind. She shuddered despite the warmth of the sun. Roza had tried to rebel too, but her voice had been silenced. People had stoned her to death for loving a Muslim boy._

 _The future was bleak, but she had no other choice than to do as father said._

 _She looked at the sun slowly going towards west._

 _She would feel the back of father's hand if she didn't hurry back and assisted her mother in preparing the food…_

The man was done.

The semen dripped from her vagina on the floor. She didn't need to look at it to know that red was as ever-present this time as it had been on the first time she'd been raped.

The sound of the opening door and scuffle of steps was the background noise that she no longer concentrated on. Weeks or maybe months ago, the footsteps had scared her.

Another man took the place of the former.

She recognized this one because he liked to pull her hair while he was railing between her legs. Her glassy eyes looked at his face and still there was no emotion on her face. Emotions made these hours painful.

The tug of a strong hand in her hair and heavy breath that smelled of tobacco started the clock on another sexual release inside her battered cunt…

" _We will have a big house in America, and I will show you around the city in a big car…" her little brother's fading words morphed into slight snores. She tucked the sheets tightly around him before she bent to kiss his cheek. His dreams were always the same._

 _A house in America. A car. And loads of money to do whatever he wanted._

 _He was still child enough to escape father's wrath with nothing but a mild rebuke. But she knew that he needed to understand that people like them weren't supposed to leave their communities. They weren't supposed to think about mingling with outsiders._

 _She knew that the day wasn't far when her baby brother's dreams would be crushed beneath the ruthless determination of their father to protect their culture and heritage._

 _She walked towards the small room that she shared with her two younger sisters. The house was quiet as it should be. She got inside the blankets on her side, and the coldness of her sheets stung her through her ratty sweater. She tried to bury herself against the body heat of her sister but to no avail._

 _Father had fixed her marriage._

 _She was going to be Fayad's wife in less than two months._

 _She willed the sleep to come and take her away to the land of dreams…_

She was viciously yanked to the present with a loud bang. She felt the vibration in the wall against her back. The man withdrew with a sharp curse. He was done, as was evident from the flaccid cock that hung between his legs, but this one was greedy.

He always tried to squeeze a second fuck if he could.

With a sharp curse, he pulled his trousers up while she lay with her skirt bunched around her middle. Her naked thighs were painfully thin and the skin was a canvas of numerous cuts and bruises.

He walked out of the door hurriedly, locking it behind him without a backward glance.

The bombers must be overhead.

The militants only rushed out of a room and a woman in case of attacks by opposition.

The tears that had not made any appearance previously fell now. In a silent, almost straight line they crossed her cheeks to fell on the rags she wore. She still prayed to the god in hopes that a stray bomb might fall on the camp where she was being kept, but every day the planes passed overhead and she was left to take cocks in her mouth and vagina…

 _Izabella was dutifully listening to her mother as she explained about the household chores that Iza would have to do in Fayad's house. It was nothing new. She already did most of the work at home._

" _Now, daughter you're going to be a married woman soon. And a married woman has some duties especially in regard to her husband." A melon was handed to the shopkeeper and her mother busied herself in bargaining. It was some time before her mother got another chance to broach the previously discarded conversation._

 _Till the time her mother had stopped to enquire after the price of meat, her face was crimson and her ears were ringing._

" _What if I don't like what Fayad does on our wedding night?" she asked in a soft whisper, embarrassed to the tip of her toes._

" _Then you lie still and let him enjoy himself, a daughter. It's a wife's duty to please her husband."_

It was a woman's duty to cry for a man's pleasure.

It was a woman who became the object of a conquest or prize of a contest.

The militants had rounded every male member of her town and executed them when they'd refused to convert their religion. They'd killed her brothers, her father in front of her eyes. She still saw the decapitated head of her baby brother in her dreams.

The blood was always on her skin, never to be scrubbed clean.

Her sisters and her mother along with her had been taken to the militant camp where her youngest sister had been bought by a fat, vile man for his perverse pleasure.

She could still feel the warmth of her sister's finger between hers.

She didn't know how many days she'd passed in this room, but it felt like a lifetime.

She curled in herself, wishing for sleep.

The horror of her dreams was much safer than her reality…


	3. Chapter 3

**This chapter contains description of abuse towards the end.**

 **Qehpik-Whore.**

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Chapter Two

" _Do you think I will ever meet my prince charming, Iza?" the innocent question of her youngest sister was a blow to her heart. She too had seen these naïve dreams in her childhood._

 _She gave a slight smile before remembering her prince of dreams._

 _A man as hardworking as her. A man as simple in his tastes as her. A man with love in his eyes, a man with secret teasing smiles. A man who looked at her as if she were his world. A man who gave tender kisses and avowals of love._

 _A paragon who didn't exist outside Izabella's dreams-she craved that man, dreamt about him in her nights._

" _Iza, hurry up, please. Sanaya must be waiting for me," her sister whined and Izabella twisted the hair in a braid as fast as she could. Her sister was out of the door even before she'd put the comb down._

 _Only two weeks from now on was the day that would mark the beginning of her new life as someone's wife._

 _How desperately she wished that that day never came…_

"Up. Get up." A pair of boots kicked her in the ribs before she could even open her eyes. She knew the daily routine by heart now. After roughly half-hours that they were allotted to freshen up, they were dragged to the courtyard where they were lectured on the benefits of conversion which wasn't much, just being the wife of one of the infidels and serving only him and not others.

In Iza's opinion, it wasn't much of a change whether it was one man forcing you to do something or numerous others in his place. She was usually punished for her insolence with twelve lashes of the whip and then she'd to spend the whole day on her back being a _qehpik…_

 _They came in large group-the brutish looking men carrying guns._

 _She remembered the day clearly. After all, a girl didn't forget her marriage day, did she?_

 _The swirling pattern of henna was drying on her palm, Fayad's name hidden in the curls. Everyone was happy except her. Her father laughed with abandon with his friends. She'd never seen her mother smile so much. Her siblings were happy and so were her friends who thought she was lucky that she was marrying Fayad._

 _Her mouth hurt from being stretched, as did her nipples courtesy to the time Fayad had twisted them roughly from over her clothes._

 _How was she to lie silently on her marriage bed and let Fayad do these despicable things with her body?_

 _She was about to excuse herself from her group of female relatives when the sudden shout forced her to turn towards the door._

 _The mass of black and gray blocked the only entrance, as one of the men stepped forward and gestured her Father to come closer. She'd never seen her father scared before that day._

 _Even before her father had taken two steps, the man pulled a handgun out from the holster at his waist and shot her father between the eyes…_

People were running.

The militant who'd been dragging her by her hair to the small shack in the corner abandoned her to take cover.

What was happening?

The answer to her question flew overhead as another blast sounded in the distance.

Her god had listened to her prayers. He was going to reward her for her faith.

When people were running like a headless chicken to save their hides, Izabella Yazmin stood up on her shaking legs. She lifted her head towards the sky as bombs after bombs dropped on the militant camp. The men who'd bragged about their manhood screamed like little girls as the woman they'd tried to break stood facing the sky that rained death over their heads.

It was an almost peaceful way to bid the world farewell.

She had nothing to lose, and hence death was welcome…

 _She was a mass of nerves when the man pushed her inside the room and then locked the door afterward. This man had purchased her earlier today._

 _She couldn't stop herself from thinking about her younger sisters and the brothers these militants had executed. They'd never harmed anyone in their lives, then why had god punished them with such brutal ends?_

" _Have you ever slept with anyone before?" the man asked and for a moment she was transported back to the colorful market where her mother had advised her to serve her husband while haggling over the price of meat. The sudden sheen of tears didn't go unnoticed._

 _The man laughed before proceeding to open the liquor bottle kept on the small table at the side of the bed._

 _Izabella avoided looking at the bed for she knew if she even stole a glance, all the horrible thoughts would come together to plague her with a vengeance._

 _He poured a glass and deposited himself on the bed. He was a heavy man in his middle fifties with abundant dark hair and beard. His glasses lent him an approachable look which Izabella knew was completely false._

 _He beckoned her to sit near his feet._

 _Her trembling steps were glaring signs of her terror and yet the man did nothing to alleviate her fears. If nothing else, he seemed much more imposing._

 _He must have grown impatient for he stood up and dragged her back to the bed, pushing her in the mattress that smelt faintly of coconuts._

 _His sudden wandering hands tore apart the material of her skirt and forced her legs to fall open._

" _I'm like your daughter," she cried._

 _The slap on her cheek stung and yet it wasn't surprising. "You're just a slave," he spat before lowering his trousers to fist his 'thing'._

 _It was dark with a bulbous head that leaked._

 _He was going to put the 'thing' inside her. This is what husbands did on wedding nights._

 _He came on the bed, his legs clamping her thrashing ones in their hold. He held off her arms in one tight grip while used the other hand to hold his 'thing'. He brought it up at the entrance of her privates…and pushed._

 _Hard._

 _Izabella screamed._

 _He let her cry and sob, let her beg and plead as he pushed inside her again and again._

 _She was splintering from inside. It burned as if someone had poured acid inside her._

 _He was tearing her apart with each thrust._

 _She struggled and struggled, one of her hands escaped his hold and still she was powerless. Her existence centered on the point between her legs, a place that was forever tainted by this man's touch._

 _She was forever ruined for anyone and anything else._

 _Her palms still had the dark color of henna, and if she squinted she could still see the half of Fayad's name…_

Hands touched her, stroked her face, and ran gently in her filthy unwashed hair.

She had forgotten what an ordinary touch felt like. Violence had been predominant enough to erase everything else.

Arms lifted her, cradled her gently against a strong chest where she could hear the thud of a heart beating in a regular rhythm.

She burrowed her nose in the fabric. It smelt like the fresh water of her stream and freedom that she'd once dreamed about.

Was this hell?

Was she going to see the same cruel faces when she opened her eyes?

She heard them talking, but this wasn't the language of the militants. She couldn't understand a single word.

All she heard being repeated frequently was a name.

Something Ward?

Maybe Edward…


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Three

When Izabella opened her eyes, all she could see was white.

It was peaceful and almost like heaven, but the blinking and beeping machines ruined the make believe.

 _Where was she?_

 _Had they taken her to experiment on her?_

The last thing she remembered was standing amidst the fire. And maybe being gently cradled against someone's chest? She wasn't sure about the last part. Maybe she'd dreamt about everything and she was still sleeping in her tiny crawling space.

"Oh, you are awake!"

She tried to sit up in haste and in the process ripped many long plastic things that were connected to her arm.

"Hey, easy. Easy."

She raised her head slowly to look at the man who'd elicited such scared reaction from her.

And lowered her eyes again.

She knew she was definitely dreaming now. She had never seen such beauty in a man. When she'd been captured, they'd passed her along like a half burnt cigarette that everyone took a drag from and snuffed again. But never in all days of her captivity had she imagined that she would witness the human incarnation of ' _Malek_ ' himself.

The first thing that had hit her in her brief almost inspection was the color of his eyes-the dark green color reminded her of the leaves of the trees of her secret meadow. His hair was copper with thousand shades of red and gold-the color of the apex of the temple when the sun first rose in the east.

She closed her eyes, her fists tightening in the sheets. He was coming closer. Even though his footsteps made no sound, she knew.

 _Was she going to wake up now?_

And why was ' _Malek_ ' speaking in a language she couldn't understand?

She opened her eyes a tiny bit at the corner only to see him kneeling at the bedside, gently untangling the tubes.

She relaxed slowly. Nothing was going to happen to her if this was a dream.

Bad things only happened when she was awake.

 _And just like that, she felt his fingers on her wrist._

She screamed.

It had been so long since she'd dared to oppose someone's touch on her skin. In all her days as the militant slave, she had felt like the chattel and nothing else.

They'd taken everything from her, even her voice.

 _The sound of her own terrified scream was comforting in a way._

"Hey, hey. Calm down," the man said.

Many people had come running, and some of them had syringes. She hated needles. She'd gone to the medical clinic once when she'd been severely ill, and they'd given her three injections. Father had grumbled about the money the whole way.

She tried to crawl back in her bed, but it was a narrow bed and sadly there was no space left to crawl back.

 _Malek_ raised his hands. "It's okay. See, I'm not touching you."

Even though she couldn't understand what he said, she somehow had this weird sense that he was trying to calm her down.

"I'm Edward," he said.

Edward? Why did the name sound so familiar?

"I carried you out from the wreck." His hands made numerous movements in what looked like an attempt to explain something to her.

"I don't think she understands you, Dr. Cullen." It was one of the men who stood at some distance from her bed. "Let me try."

"Dr. Cullen-" he pointed towards _Malek_ , "-Edward, he saved you. He was the one who found you in the debris and carried you out," he explained in his barely understandable Kurdish.

"Edward?" her pronunciation elongated the middle part of his name, so it came out like "Edw-aa-ard".

"See. She knows me." He turned towards the onlookers and dismissed them with a wave of his hand, but not without giving a knowing glance to a woman standing in the back.

He didn't move from his place until everyone was gone.

"We could have escaped the drama had I introduced myself in the beginning. See, sometimes I'm such an idiot." He smiled, and Izabella felt as if the air was deserting her body slowly. His skin was pale and luminous, and if she concentrated enough, she was sure she could see the dark blue veins beneath.

"Now, I'm going to hook you up on saline again," he said pointing towards an inverted bag of water hooked up on a pole. "Try not to scare me, will you?"

He came slowly towards her, every step a carefully calculated movement that made her feel like a damaged animal.

His motion was precise and unhurried, and he had the saline flowing in her in a blink of an eye. She hadn't even noticed the sting when needle had pierced her skin again. She was awed by his smile and the kindness that was the present in his eyes.

Halo- she could see a halo around his head.

"So, won't you tell me your name?" he asked as he sat on the side of her bed.

She looked at him in confusion and maybe after a moment he remembered that she didn't understand his language.

"Edward." He pointed towards himself and then towards her.

 _Was he asking her name? But hadn't father said that she wasn't supposed to tell her name to anyone?_

She wanted to tell him, but father would be so angry.

But, father was…dead, wasn't he?

"Izabella," she muttered monotonously. After all, what was there in her name? She'd already lost everything.

"Bella. Perfect. I'm gonna call you Bella." He frowned for a moment. "You don't have a problem with Bella, do you?"

Bella…

She shook her head.

Iza was dead. No one was ever going to call her Iza again…


	5. Chapter 5

**Thanks you for the reviews, people…**

 **Don't own Twilight.**

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Chapter Four

"How are we today, Bella?"

She was staring out of the window. She did this frequently-sat near the window and cautiously peered outside as if she were afraid that all this would go away in a moment.

Edward felt as if he knew her. Maybe it was because he had rescued her himself.

She'd stood amidst the carnage with a beatific smile on her battered face. She had been the very embodiment of phoenix with her head thrown back and her eyes closed.

He touched her shoulder gently and she was startled out of her reverie.

They didn't speak each other's language and yet that didn't prevent him from trying to have conversations with her. Sometimes she looked at him as if she was unsure whether or not he was real.

Bella had been through a lot.

When he'd brought her in, she'd been suffering from acute weight loss and dehydration. She'd been raped continuously over a long duration of time and her captors had found an exceptional joy in whipping her.

She was afraid of people and she didn't let anyone touch her except for him. The nurses whispered that it was the result of his exceptional good looks but he liked to think that she found some sort of comfort in his presence.

She was healing nicely. He gestured her to tilt her head. The bruise around her neck was almost gone.

'So, now that we are done with our daily dose of check-up, you can start your story anytime you like,' he said as he pulled the chair to sit down at her bedside, his clipboard resting on his knees.

For a moment she was quiet, utterly silent and she just looked at him with those dark chocolate eyes of hers, wonder and gratitude a hard emotion to overlook or ignore.

' _Malek_ ,' she whispered softly, and he wanted to turn his head away.

He was no god, but that was what she called him. One of his volunteers had heard her say it, and Edward in his curiosity had asked the meaning of the word.

' _I never wanted to marry Fayad, but it was father's will and hence I could do nothing to oppose it. Even when they were painting my hands with henna, I prayed and prayed in my heart for anything to stop the marriage,'_ she said sadly. ' _When they took me away and killed everyone, I knew I had somehow been responsible for everything. I had been selfish and Malek was punishing me for it_.'

'It wasn't your fault, Bella,' he said patiently, his face unmarked by the feelings that were brewing inside him.

' _Wasn't it? I didn't want to marry, Fayad. I hated him_.' Tears escaped her eyes. ' _I hated the way he touched me, and I prayed for it to stop._ ' She took a shuddering breath. ' _Had I known what my wish would bring, I would have married him gladly._ '

'Bella.' He gently touched the back of her palm. 'Militants had been active throughout your country and it was just a matter of time before they launched their attack against the people of your religion.'

Every day, Edward Cullen patiently sat by her bedside and heard her story even when he couldn't understand a word. Every day, he tried to make her believe that she'd not been the reason for everyone's death, that she'd not been wicked enough for god to punish her with hell.

And yet she never believed him.

' _What did I do wrong_?' she asked desperately. He had no answer that he could give.

How could he make her understand that some people looked at the world in a one dimensional way and for them, religion was the heart and soul of their existence? How could he make her understand that a madman had waged a war on people of her religion because he thought people like Bella were Satanists?

Even in this day and age, people like Bella were punished because of their choice to worship a manifestation of god that others didn't understand.

How could he make her understand all that?

'You did nothing, Bella,' he answered after moments. 'They were the ones in wrong.'

He didn't know if she'd understood him or not because she was still agitated, still restless.

He got up, ready to leave the girl who'd somehow found a place in his daily routine, who'd somehow found a way to interrupt his thoughts every second of the day.

' _Edward_ ,' she called and he paused.

She rarely called him by his given name, and when she did he could do nothing but stop and admire the way her voice caressed the syllables of his name. He knew this was getting out of hand, and as a doctor, he was supposed to offer comfort, not grow attached to his patient.

'Edward?'

This time he bent towards her, ready to hear the parting goodbye. But unlike everyday, she didn't mutter a soft farewell; instead, her fingers touched his cheek gently, almost shakingly.

His world fractured with that bare brush of her skin on his, and when it came together again, it wasn't the same.

He wasn't the same.

' _Will I ever forget_?'

He was a mute spectator of his own unraveling. Her fingers had not left his cheek, and he found that his hands were touching her cheek in a mirroring gesture out of their violation.

What was happening to him?

'You are going to be okay, Bella,' he promised as he wiped her tears. ' _We are going to be okay_ …'


End file.
